Before Partition, she wrote for many Indian newspapers, and was the first Muslim woman to have a column in an Indian newspaper. After Partition, she became the first female political commentator in Pakistan, because of her column in the Dawn. After she left Dawn, she became the founder and editor-publisher of the Mirror, the first social glossy magazine in South Asia. Due to her status as Pakistan's first female editor, she became the first woman to be included in press delegations sent abroad. On one of these delegations, in 1955, she became the first woman to speak at the ancient al-Azhar University in Cairo.

Early life

Zeb-un-Nissa Ali was born in 1921 to a literary family in Calcutta; her father, S. Wajid Ali, was the first person to translate the writings of the well-known Urdu poet Iqbal into Bengali, and was an avid Bengali nationalist and writer. She had two brothers, and one half-brother from her mother's second marriage. She grew up in a tightly-knit Anglo-Indian household filled with Bengali thinkers and philosophers of the age, as her father's house at 48, Jhowtalla Road, was something of a meeting place for the Calcutta literary circle. She started to write at an early age, and received considerable support from both her English mother and Bengali father. A lonely child, Zeb-un-Nissa took to writing poetry as a means for expressing her thoughts and emotions. Her later writing was affected by her trips to rural areas of Bengal and Punjab, including her father's birthplace, the Bengali village of Tajpur. She was educated at Loreto House.

Marriage

In 1940, she married Khalifa Muhammad Hamidullah. Unlike most marriages of the time, hers was not an arranged marriage. She moved to the Punjab with him after their marriage. He worked there as an executive for the Bata shoe company. During the Partition of 1947, she and her husband helped refugees coming from across the Indian border.

K.M. Hamidullah, her husband, belonged to a well-known family of the Punjab. His father, Khalifa Mohammad Asadullah, was the librarian of the Imperial Library in Calcutta. Hamidullah was the head of Bata's operations in Pakistan, and was sent to head Bata in Ireland in 1972. All Zaib-un-Nissa's books were dedicated to him, proof of their devotion to one another. They had two children: Nilofar (b.1943) and Yasmine (b.1949).

After moving to the Punjab in 1942, Zeb-un-Nissa was shocked. Raised in an Anglo-Indian household, she found it hard to adjust to the very different lifestyle of her husband's large Punjabi family. It took time for her to adjust, as she admitted in the foreword to The Young Wife.

Career

1936 - 1943

Zeb-un-Nissa first came into prominence in 1936, when a poem of hers was accepted for publication by Bombay's famous Illustrated Weekly of India. From then on, she was a regular contributor to that newspaper, until Partition. In 1941, her first book of poetry, Indian Bouquet, was published by her father's publishing house and proved to be very popular. All the copies of the first edition were sold in three months. She followed up on her early success with Lotus Leaves, another book of poetry.

1944 - 1946

In 1945, Zeb-un-Nissa and her husband were in Simla at the time of the Simla Conference. It was here that Zeb-un-Nissa met Fatima Jinnah. They became friends, and Miss Jinnah soon managed to get Zeb-un-Nissa an exclusive interview with her brother, Muhammad Ali Jinnah. This was a landmark in the young Zeb-un-Nissa's career, and managed to shoot her to India-wide fame. Her stories, poems and articles started to gain her more fame around this time, as well, and she came into demand.

1947 - 1951

After Partition, the ambitious Zaib-un-Nissa decided to work in the field of journalism, and soon established herself as an outspoken writer in her column 'Thru a Woman's Eyes', in the daily Dawn newspaper of Karachi. This column began in December, 1948. After a time, she rebelled against the limited scope of the feature, declaring that women should have the right to comment on every subject, including politics. Mr. Altaf Husain, then editor of the Dawn, eventually agreed to give her a wider scope. He recognized the merit of her work by giving her a new assignment - that of a columnist appearing on the editorial page. Begum Hamidullah thus became the first female political commentator of Pakistan. Her column established her reputation as an honest columnist who was not afraid to voice her opinions. It was also a huge step for the women's rights movement in Pakistan.

1951 - 1956

In 1951, she left Dawn, due to a disagreement with Mr. Altaf Husain's policies, and founded a monthly magazine called the Mirror, and became its editor and publisher. She thus became a businesswoman as well. This glossy social pictorial, with its courageous and sincere editorials, was an instant success.

The Mirror became very popular, and Zeb-un-Nissa soon became quite famous as a journalist and editor. The Pakistani government included her in numerous press delegations during this period.

She was a founder member of the Karachi Business and Professional Women's Club, and served as its first president. She held this position for two consecutive terms. She was also the first president of the Women's International Club of Karachi, a member of the Horticultural Society and first woman President of the Flower Show Committee. Another organization Hamidullah played an important role in was APWA, founded by her friend Begum Raana Liaquat Ali Khan.

In 1955, as part of a press delegation to Cairo, she became the first woman to speak at the ancient Al-Azhar University. Her speech was controversial, as she discussed Pakistan's Kashmir issue. However, it was a great distinction for her.

In 1956, Begum Hamidullah wrote a travelogue entitled 'Sixty Days In America', about her trip to the USA as part of a 'World Leaders Program', during which she befriended people like Marilyn Monroe and Jean Negulesco, and appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show. This travelogue consisted of columns she had written for a newspaper, The Times of Karachi, during her trip. The editor, ZA Suleri, gave her permission to reprint the columns in book form as a travelogue, and she proceeded to do so.

The following year, she represented Pakistan at the UN sponsored seminar on "Civic Responsibilities and Increased Participation of Asian Women in Public Life".

Ban on the Mirror

In 1957, her outspoken criticism of the harsh regime of Major-General Iskander Mirza and the forced resignation of Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy culminated in a six-month government ban on the Mirror, issued on November 9th. This ban, she was privately informed, would be withdrawn if she publicly apologized. She refused to do this and, on the advice of the well-known lawyer A.K. Brohi, appealed to the Supreme Court.

After Brohi's intervention on her behalf, the Supreme Court passed judgement in her favour. Holding the order of the Central Government illegal and unconstitutional, the government awarded costs to Begum Hamidullah. This incident made journalistic history, and gave her the distinction of being the first woman journalist to have won a case in the Supreme Court.

1958 - 1961

In 1958, she published an anthology of her short stories, "The Young Wife and Other Stories", which was so popular that second and third editions were printed in 1971 and 1987 respectively. Eminent critics, from newspapers and periodicals both Pakistani and foreign, called some of the stories in it "...the most significant literary productions of Pakistan". It was during this period that her editorials started to become a major feature of the Mirror, and this increased the popularity of both her and her magazine.

In April 1961, Begum Hamidullah opened her own publishing house: Mirror Press. Mirror Press, and its subsidiary, Mirror Publications, were charged with printing the Mirror from 1961 onwards. They also did other jobs, but the publishing house remained small.

The 1960s

The Mirror became a highly controversial magazine in the '60s, mainly due to Begum Hamidullah's editorials, which were highly critical of the government's authoritarian form of rule. As her magazine became and more and more risqué, Begum Hamidullah began to feel that her, and her family, could soon be in danger. Highly critical of Ayub Khan and his government, Begum Hamidullah dropped out of governmental favour. As such, the Mirror lost government advertisements and patronage.

During this period, she wrote a series of very critical editorials about Ayub Khan's style of government, starting with 'Please, Mr. President!', a very emotional open letter in which she pleaded with Ayub Khan to stop ordering the police to harm students taking part in demonstrations. After Khan replied to the first editorial with a letter in which he dismissed Begum Hamidullah as 'rashly emotional', the tension steadily increased. The Mirror came close to being banned many times, and was banned twice. However, this period of her career came to a climax in the February 1969 edition of the Mirror, in which she published both 'Please Mr. President!' and a new editorial, 'No, thank you, Sir!'. She claimed that the situation had not improved and that "Pakistanis from Peshawar to Chittagong are crying 'out with Ayub!'".

Ayub Khan soon abdicated, ironically doing exactly what she'd advised him to do. However, she continued to write critical editorials whenever she felt the government was in need of a rebuke.

1969 - 1971

Begum Hamidullah was Deputy Leader of the Pakistani delegation to the United Nations General Assembly from 1970 to 1971. In 1971, after Bangladesh won its independence, Zaib-un-Nissa sent a telegram congratulating the new government of her homeland. Always pro-Bangladeshi independence, she was overjoyed.

In 1971, Begum Hamidullah's husband was transferred to Ireland, to head Bata operations there. As neither of her two daughters was willing to take over the magazine, she closed it down, and sold off her publishing house, Mirror Press.

1971 - 1979

For most of the '70s, she and her husband lived in Dublin, Ireland, where he had been transferred. Zaib-un-Nissa put her career on hold to be with her husband, and visited Pakistan regularly. She returned near the end of the decade and began writing a column entitled 'Thinking Aloud' for the Pakistani magazine MAG, part of the large Jang Group.

1980 - 1983

In the early 1980s, she served as president of the All Pakistan Women's Association (APWA), an organization she had played a major role in since its inception. Still writing columns for the Morning News of Karachi, she continued to comment on the socio-political aspects of Pakistani society. However, she was becoming increasingly reclusive.

Retirement

In 1983, Zaib-un-Nissa's husband had a heart attack, and he died the next year. On the day of his funeral, she wrote what was to become the most famous article of her later career. This introspective piece was published in the Morning News the day after her husband's death.

She was plunged into sadness following KM Hamidullah's death, and soon retired from an active writing life. Disenchanted with the new generation of Pakistanis, Zaib-un-Nissa fell into seclusion and soon moved in with her daughter, choosing to spend her remaining years with her family. She retired from an active career, and only wrote occasional articles in the '80s.

In 1987, however, she was plunged into the public eye once again, when her book of short stories, The Young Wife and Other Stories, was republished due to popular demand. Yet this late fame did not last very long, and she soon went back into seclusion.

Death

Begum Hamidullah died on 10 September, 2000, at the age of 78. She had been rushed to hospital on the 9th, but died in the early hours of the 10th, due to water in her lungs.

An obituary in Dawn said "even her detractors admired her for the courage of conviction and the strength of character she displayed throughout her life." Another newspaper obituary said "She will be long remembered for her pioneering role in a certain genre of journalism in Pakistan, and as a powerful and courageous writer."

Legacy

After Begum Hamidullah's death, her copyright passed to her younger daughter, Yasmine S. Ahmed. This included the right to all her pictures, works, etc. Due to popular demand, a fourth edition of 'The Young Wife and Other Stories' was published by OUP Pakistan in August 2008.

Zaib-un-Nissa or Zeb-un-Nissa?

There has been much confusion about the correct spelling of Begum Hamidullah's name. She was originally named Zeb-un-Nissa after the Mughal Princess Zeb-un-Nissa, and kept this spelling of her name through most of her life. However, there was much confusion, as, due to the pronunciation, most people thought her name was spelt Zaib-un-Nissa. Thus, when in 1970 the government named Zaibunnisa Street in her honour, she changed her name permanently to Zaib-un-Nissa Hamidullah. This has the become the more common and accepted spelling of her name, and is the spelling most widely used today. However, most readers of the Mirror still remember her as Zeb-un-Nissa Hamidullah, as that was how she was accredited in the magazine. In latter anthologies, like A Dragonfly In The Sun by Muneeza Shamsie, she was accredited as Zaib-un-Nissa Hamidullah.

Even though the first part of her name is now accepted as 'Zaib', there is still some confusion, with various transliterations popping up. Zaibunnisa, Zaibunnissa, Zaibunissa and Zaibunisa are the most common errors.